It was only Sunday that this year's Phoenix Festival season kicked off. This year's Burining of the 5th started with incense in a fire pit rather than last year's angry, roaring pain filled bon fire. This year was more like a moment of sending love into the universe, to those still suffering, and for all the pain of 2017.
Then yesterday, I got news that Laura Harvey was leaving my beloved Seattle Reign, and day 2 became surprisingly a day of mourning again, though this time not for people hurt by a church policy, but because someone important, a stabilising factor in a soccer team, was taking a chance and moving forward in life. And it left me feeling destabilized by change.
Then someone on Twitter wrote some beautiful words about a beautiful bird not being trapped in a cage, and the importance of being free, even if we didn't get to see the bird as much any more. I have totally messed it up here, but this metaphor struck me deeply, because it was day 2 of Phoenix festival, and that person was right.
Today is New Ash Wednesday. I wasn't going to keep all the feasts and structures the same as last year, because Phoenix Festival is a holiday season that is about change, and adapting to your needs, but as I awoke this morning, I realized I needed it to be called New Ash Wednesday again.
Everything is ashes again. Yesterday's news for my soccer team created a chaos in my mind, where I'm just not sure what the Reign are going to look like next season now. Things have changed. We are at a place where we start again. Not from scratch, the Phoenix ashes are a place of rebirth and creation that will always become a Phoenix again. The point is, that from big scary changes comes opportunities for growth that wouldn't be there if we didn't leave our comfort zone.
From all the words and statements I read from Laura Harvey yesterday, I gained one insight. If we wait to make big changes in our life until we are completely comfortable, and ready to make them, we have waited too long, and missed great opportunities. Changes that are meaningful, that move us forward, require a bit of discomfort and risk.
As we sit in the Ashes stage of Phoenix Festival, let us envision the future we desire, and embrace the changes, risk and hard work it will take to get there.
Happy Phoenix Fistival.
Then yesterday, I got news that Laura Harvey was leaving my beloved Seattle Reign, and day 2 became surprisingly a day of mourning again, though this time not for people hurt by a church policy, but because someone important, a stabilising factor in a soccer team, was taking a chance and moving forward in life. And it left me feeling destabilized by change.
Then someone on Twitter wrote some beautiful words about a beautiful bird not being trapped in a cage, and the importance of being free, even if we didn't get to see the bird as much any more. I have totally messed it up here, but this metaphor struck me deeply, because it was day 2 of Phoenix festival, and that person was right.
Today is New Ash Wednesday. I wasn't going to keep all the feasts and structures the same as last year, because Phoenix Festival is a holiday season that is about change, and adapting to your needs, but as I awoke this morning, I realized I needed it to be called New Ash Wednesday again.
Everything is ashes again. Yesterday's news for my soccer team created a chaos in my mind, where I'm just not sure what the Reign are going to look like next season now. Things have changed. We are at a place where we start again. Not from scratch, the Phoenix ashes are a place of rebirth and creation that will always become a Phoenix again. The point is, that from big scary changes comes opportunities for growth that wouldn't be there if we didn't leave our comfort zone.
From all the words and statements I read from Laura Harvey yesterday, I gained one insight. If we wait to make big changes in our life until we are completely comfortable, and ready to make them, we have waited too long, and missed great opportunities. Changes that are meaningful, that move us forward, require a bit of discomfort and risk.
As we sit in the Ashes stage of Phoenix Festival, let us envision the future we desire, and embrace the changes, risk and hard work it will take to get there.
Happy Phoenix Fistival.
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